First task cancelled in the air at 14.30
A reasonable forecast with 15km/hr SW with base only around 2300m. However, the thermal quality of the day soon appeared to be better than the forecast. A race to goal with start gate near the Big Spine area. A period of back winds around the proposed window open time made us move the window open to 14.00hrs with the start gate at 14.30hrs. With most pilots off the hill and at around 14.20 a number of comments were made on the Saftety frequence about strong winds and turbulence. Unfortunately few of the safety or task committee gave us information about the conditions as they percieved them at that time. With a call of level 2 reaching 3 I decided to cancell before the pilots left the relatively safe area of the start point. After this they would be at the pass where the wind would be inevitably stronger. A strong wind with no sign of pilots going more than 200m above take off would have perhaps led to safety problems around the pass. Very disapointing to cancell a task with such a classic looking sky in the Ambles valley which would have allowed many to reach the 114km goal. No doubt, as always, there will be much discussion and disagreement about this task cancellation.